Alabama Football: Four keys to National Championship

No. 2 – The Alabama Football deep ball and No. 3 – Tide balanced patience

In the second half of the season, teams have been determined to slow down the Alabama Football deep-ball attack. To an extent, it has worked, After the Crimson Tide passed for more than 400 yards in four of its first five games, passing yards have gone down. The exception was the Florida game when the Tide hit its second-highest passing output of the season at 418 yards.

Clemson must hope it can pressure Mac Jones rushing four, allowing the use of two deep safeties. Clemson has held its opponents to an average completion rate of 54 percent. That number is artificially low. Along with playing The Citadel, Clemson played five ACC opponents whose passing completion percentages were ranked No. 90 or higher in the FBS. Mac Jones is completing 76.5 percent of his passes.

While using safety help deep, Clemson cannot minimize Crimson Tide home-run connections and cover the Tide tight ends and running backs. Steve Sarkisian’s greatest strength is a balanced attack, able to go deep into his playbook. No college offensive coordinator is better than Sark at taking what a defense gives him.

Assuming Jaylen Waddle is not healthy enough to play, Clemson will concentrate on DeVonta Smith. Sark can counter with Najee running and receiving, Metchie, Forristall and Billingsley. Clemson Defensive Coordinator, Brent Venables, even if he can slow Smitty, must be aggressive. He must try and out-guess Sarkisian on every play.

The Clemson defense has improved over last season. The Crimson Tide offense has improved as well. Venables will have to guess correctly the majority of the time to slow, arguably the best offense in college football.  If Venables takes away most of the Tide’s deep-ball strikes, Sark’s patient and balanced scheme is still enough to win.

In reality, what the National Championship game will be is a battle between two comparable teams. It should be a great football game. Many times, when teams or nearly equal strength compete, a game comes down to a handful of plays. In those plays, one team gains an advantage by a group of players rising to the championship challenge. Clemson has players with that ability. So does the Alabama Crimson Tide. Our bet is more of them will be wearing Alabama Football Crimson and White.

After skipping over Notre Dame in the post, we’ll go back to focusing on the Fighting Irish. Check-in with Bama Hammer frequently for more Playoff news.